the best friend – pyjamas

School times. The day of the exam or test. Not very well prepared. Praying for a cold. (Un)fortunately, we didn’t have Uncle Google back then to teach us how to stimulate the fever. Now kids have it easier, though I am not sure if this is a good way. Well, it is not. 20 years after – we are praying not to be sick. I have just experienced (second time in my life) being on sickness leave. So I have now realized how it is to be on off sick abroad and you can treat this post as a survival kit for those hard times.

So what happens. You go to sleep and then wake up in the midle of the night. Eyes wide open, but still blurred sight. What the hell is happening? Ahh yeah.. I can feel it. Pain in the throat, shivers. Hello again my dearest friend fever! Living on your own has pros and cons. In this situation – a great con; at 2 a.m. in the morning you have no one to wake up and with Shrek’s Cat eyes asking for some pills and care. No way! You need to move your ass, turn on the light and dig for this thermometer that you’ve used the last time few years ago and only had it because your Mum was obsessed before moving abroad and have equipped you with the whole pharmacy. You were laughing then, but saying how much you love her in your head now. The nightmare is happening. You are sick. It really doesn’t matter if this is just cold or flu or any other difficult latin word, you still have 6 hours before you can make the first call to your Friends here and try to get to the doctor, who obviously doesn’t speak any language you do.

Survived till morning. Ufff… now things will go smoothly. But actually – what are the procedures of going to the doctor or even calling off sick in the new country? Trust me, I’ve lived in three countries by now and seems like in each of them the policy is completely different! Just to help us all out 😉 The good thing is that one message in the morning and seems that everything got miracolously sorted out. Yes, I am lucky to have amazing people around here and basically I’ve had a delivery to the door with the first supply of paracetamol along with the set appointment at the doctor’s. But yeah… then the doctor. Trying to convince that I can really leave the house while being on antibiotics did not work out well and the elder lady just looked at me with a pity and said.. Vai a letto. ahh.. grazie…

So in the pharmacy. I went with the piece of paper. Surprisingly the note was readable even for myself, so with the smile at the counter I said: “Buongiorno!” and simply passed the piece of paper. It happens. The pharmacist asks the question.. oh dear… getting red. He repeats. No.. giving up. I didn’t understand a word and he didn’t speak English. By gestures though, I understood that I could have chosen if I wanted tablets or pills. I would say this is more C1 language proficiency and I am not quite there yet! 😉

Anyway, have you thought what to do closed in an empty flat for few days? I had those amazing plans. While being in bed I can read books, study italian, watch some movies. Each attempt has finished with a nap after 10 min. Like really… I didn’t even notice that I was on my own for so many hours. The only problem started when my Friend called me and I needed to speak. I have completely lost my voice, so the first two minutes I just sounded ridicolous. After three days I have probably caught up with all polish movies released since I’ve moved abroad and my phone was dying after few hours of usage as I went through all possible online shopping portals (and haven’t bought a thing btw.) and interrupted my Friends all over the world by texting at the most random times with the most random stories. Obviously for me all of them were really important at that particular moment. I have planned every weekend until the end of the year and also made plans on how I’d like to arrange the flat and which displays to see shortly. I’ve also cooked my mum’s soup that is the best cure for any illness! All this lasted 4 days. Now I have 4 more days ahead and I start wondering, why haven’t I decided to live again in the shared house, that would make things more sociable now, I suppose. Well maybe an idea for the next post – pros and cons of living in a shared house?

Anyway, what’s the conclusion – being sick sucks, no matter where you are! & I simply love not taking off pyjamas all day long! 😉